VOL. IV. this play, fc. i. fixth speech, in the old copy.] Hence the mistake was the more eafy. MALONE. ALL'S WELL &C, 34. Yet in this captious and intenible fieve.] By captious, believe, Shakspeare only meant recipient, capable of receiving what is put into it; and by intenible, incapable of holding or retaining it. How frequently he and the other writers of his age confounded the active and paffive adjectives, has been already more than once obferved. MALONE. 50. Add to my note .] So, in More Fooles yet, by R. S. a collection of Epigrams, 4to, 1610: Moreover fattin futes he doth compare "Unto the fervice of a barber's chayre; "As fit for every Jacke and journeyman, "As for a knight or worthy gentleman" STEEVENS. 60. Good alone is good &c.] I have no doubt the meaning is-Good is good, independent on any worldly distinction or title: fo, vileness is vile, in whatever ftate it may appear. The very fame phrafeology is found in Macbeth: "Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, "Yet grace must still look fo." i. e. must still look like grace-like itfelf. MALONE. 61. Which challenges itfelf as honour's born, Perhaps we might read more elegantly-as honour-born,— honourably defcended; the child of honour. MALONE. 64. After note .] To comment means to affume the appear ance of perfons difcourfing. A fimilar ftage-direction occurs in The Merchant of Venice: "A fong-while Baffanio comments on the cafkets to himself." MALONE. 78. Note 3.] Dr. Warburton's explanation is confirmed inconteftably by these lines in the fifth act, in which Helena again repeats the fubftance of this letter: "there is your ring; "And, look you, here's your letter; this it fays: MALONE. 86. A right good creature- -] Add to my note.-The fame expreffion is found in The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634: "A right good creature, more to me deferving, 95. And 95. And lawful meaning. Mr. Tollet's explanation VOL. IV. appears to me rather ingenious than true. And lawful and ALL'S unlawful are so near in found, that I have no doubt the lat- WELL &c. ter (which Sir T. Hanmer propofed) was the author's word. This line, I think, is only a paraphrafe on the foregoing. -] MALONE. 96. So we feem to know, is to know I think the meaning is-Our feeming to know what we speak one to another, is to make him to know our purpose immediately; to discover our defign to him. To know, in the last instance, signifies to make known. MALONE. 100. I pri'thee do not frive against my vows.] To follow Mr. Steevens's note.-There can, I think, be no doubt that this is Bertram's meaning. If Mr. Steevens's explanation wanted fupport, it might be had from a paffage in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy, by Webfter, 1612, in which the duke Brachiano, after having declared that he would never more cohabit with his wife, ufes the fame expreffion, which Shakfpeare has here given to Bertram : "Henceforth I'll never lie with thee-by this, "This ring 66 -This my vow "Shall never on my foul be satisfied, "With my repentance: let thy brother rage "Beyond a horrid tempeft or fea-fight, My vow is fix'd." In Mr. Steevens's note, inftead of " in his letter to ber,"-read-" in his letter to the countefs." MALONE. MALONE. Is it not most damnable—— 112. —he was whip'd for getting the Sheriff's fool with child; a dumb innocent, that could not fay him nay ] Innocent does not here fignify a perfon without guilt or blame; but means, in the good-natured language of our ancestors, an ideot or natural fool. Agreeably to this fenfe of the word is the following entry of a burial in the parish Register of Charlewood in Surrey: "Thomas Sole, an innocent about the age of fifty years and upwards, buried 19th September, 1605." WHALLEY. Doll Common in the Alchemift, being asked for her opinion of the widow Pliant, obferves that fhe is-" a good dull in nocent," ALL'S VOL. IV. nocent." Again, in The Silent Woman: "Do you think you had married fome innocent out of the hofpital, that would ftand with her hands thus, and a playfe mouth, and look upon you?" Again, in I Would and Would not, a poem, by B. N. 1614: WELL &C. . I would I were an innocent, a foole, "That can do nothing elfe but laugh or crie, See alfo Mr. Reed's note on Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, new edit. of Dodfley's Collection of Old Plays, vol. VIII, p. 24. STEEVENS. 115. Men are to mell with--] Add to my note-To mell is ufed by Marston, our author's contemporary, in the fenfe of medling, without the idea which Theobald imagines to be couched under the word in this place: "To bite, to gnaw, and boldly to inter-mell Scourge of Villanie, B. iii. Sat. 9. MALONE. 120. Hel. Yet 1 pray you note, p 121.-I would read: Yet I 'fray you ] To follow Dr. Johnson's But with the word: the time will bring &c. And then the fenfe will be, "I only frighten you by mentioning the word fuffer; for a fhort time will bring on the feafon of happiness and delight." E. 125. After note.] When Cromwell, in 1653, forcibly turned out the rump-parliament, he bid the foldiers "take away that fool's bauble," pointing to the fpeaker's mace. 1 floed engaged.] E. I have no doubt that ingaged (the reading of the folio) is right, Gaged is ufed by other writers, as well as by Shakspeare, for engaged. So, in a Paftoral, by Daniel, 1605: "Not that the earth did gage "Unto the husbandman "Her voluntary fruits, free without fees." Ingaged in the fenfe of unengaged, is a word of exactly the fame formation as inhabitable, which is ufed by Shakspeare and the contemporary writers for uninhabitable. MALONE. 144. Mer 144. Methought you faid-] The poet has here forgot VOL. IV. himfelf. Diana has faid no fuch thing. E. ALL'S 145 May juftly diet me.] To follow Mr. Collins's note.- WELL &c. I rather think the meaning is-May jufly loath or be weary of me as people generally are of a regimen or prescribed diet. MALONE. 146. He did love her Sir-but how?] But how, I believe, belongs to the king's next fpeech: But how, how I pray you? This fuits better with the king's apparent impatience and folicitude for Helená. MALONE. TWELFTH NIGHT, NIGHT. 154. -That breathes upon a bank of violets-] Here TWELFTH Shakspeare makes the South steal odour from the violet. In his 99th Sonnet,, the violet is made the thief: "The forward violet thus did I chide : "Sweet thief, whence didft thou fteal thy fweet that "If not from my love's breath?" MALONE. He hath indeed, all, most natural. MALONE. 162. —like a parish-top.] To fleep like a town-top," is a proverbial expreflion. A top is faid to fleep, when it turns round with great velocity, and makes a smooth humming noise. -E. 166. To follow Steevens's note ] It appears from many paffages in the old English plays, that in our author's time, curtains were hung before all pictures of any value. So, in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy, by Webster, 1612: I yet but draw the curtain now to your picture." 180. And leave the world no copy] After Steevens's note.→ Again, in his 9th Sonnet: Ah! VOL. IV. TWELFTH "Ah! if thou iffueless fhall hap to die, "The world will wail thee like a makeless wife, "O that you were yourself! but, love, you are MALONE. 185. That fure methought &c] After Steevens's note.The word fure, which is wanting in the first folio, was fupplied by the fecond. MALONE. 187. Alas our frailty-] The fecond folio gave the prefent reading. MALONE. 188. an excellent breaft.] So, in Antonio and Mellida, by Marston, 1602: "Boy, fing aloud; make heaven's vault to ring 190. I did impetticoat thy gratuity.] The old copy has : 210. My nettle of India.] To follow Steevens's note p. 211.-The change was made by the editors of the fecond folio in 1632, probably from the original Mf.; for of this play there is no quarto edition. MALONE. 212. the lady of the frachy-] To follow Steevens's note.-In B. Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair, a gingerbread woman is called lady of the basket. MALONE. 214. Or play with fome rich jewel] The old copy has : -or play with my fome rich jewel. MALONE. Ibid. Though our filence be drawn from us with cars.] The first folio reads cars; the fecond, apparently by an error of the prefs, cares. The reading propofed by Sir T. Hanmer, though I think it not right, is countenanced by a fimilar expreffion in Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poefie: "Poefie muft not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led." MALONE. 216. After Mr. Steevens's fecond note ] I am afraid fome very coarfe and vulgar appellations are meant to be alluded to by thefe capital letters. E. 219. Add after the fecond inftance in note 5.] Again, in Wherever you fee me Truft unto Yourfelfe, or the Myfteria of Lending and Borrowing, &c. by Thomas Powell London Cam. |